


just tell me i'm the only one, even if it's not true

by aeinlookalike



Category: Granblue Fantasy (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-19 21:49:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19364647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeinlookalike/pseuds/aeinlookalike
Summary: another farewell to the wandering knight whose services are always needed elsewhere.





	just tell me i'm the only one, even if it's not true

**Author's Note:**

> I know this whole damn city thinks it needs you, but not as much as I do. As much as I do.  
> [I wonder if your therapist knows everything about me?]

“Leaving again so soon?”

Siegfried shrugs. “You know me.” Oh, so Percival did, but still he must ask. “I’ll be back.”

He always did come back eventually. Percival knows that too. “You will be.” It’s said with no mirth or arrogance. It was just how it was. Siegfried smiles at that, simply because. Perhaps he thinks of it as confidence instead. Percival isn’t sure how to take his own sentence himself anyway. 

There’s nothing else said after that. His helmet comes on and suddenly he is no longer just Siegfried. On the cradle of everyone’s newly formed mouths with gradual encouragement and happiness again, nor even of previous captain of so many skills no one else could even claim to have in their lifetime. He is Siegfried, dragon killer, bygone days of still kingslayer, and most importantly, the wanderer. It is cruel, Percival thinks, how so much could develop in an unfortunate circumstance, and Siegfried as always, had no desire to change any of it. 

_‘Let them continue,’_ he had said. _‘I know where my true loyalties lie, as do my friends and lover.’_ And that is such a Siegfried thing to say. Why worry over such trivial things he could never control entirely when it is easier this way? It is not in twined secrets or deceit on how he works. The lights of other darkness and how truths will always come and go, even if doubt stays. On the division of others and how words are so easily scattered and twisted to suit others’ needs. 

He had talked once on how some nights were starless when he wandered to and fro. Fire set asail at dusk, the moon seemed to come to one, and the sun to the other. At the ending twilight when both are in sync, it seemed possible for anything to happen. And how sometimes he thought back to a past life that doesn’t fit him anymore, but Siegfried still wondered about it.

_‘It could be for you again.’_ Is it a plea, Percival heard, in his own words? He’s not sure. A want is not selfish. No, it is, but still, he could try. As if on some whim that Siegfried might say yes.

But from that, Siegfried only laughed. _‘It couldn’t.’_ It’s said gently, as if to let him down quietly, but Percival knew that anyway. There’s no more elaboration, and he doesn’t need to hear it. They both knew that too. Beneath that noon, it seemed so possible to confess so much more than just answers they already had told without words.

The two of them are no stranger to halves or fourths, or even wholes, after all. 

Except Percival yields, as he always does. Even if it is not said, even if he will never acknowledge it, he gives into the other. When love weeps and is separated for another day, sutured past a glint of ‘perhaps.’ But that is how it always has been. Distant, but never for the sake of anything else except duty. 

For Siegfried has always done what he has to do. No one else could and would stop that. Especially not Percival. There is yearning in the both of them, for the same and different things. Only peace in the dust of sleep, even if it feels like aeons have passed them by. (He wishes for that to stay sometimes, but also doesn’t; out of spite, out of longing, and out of their own differences.)

_‘Siegfried,’_ He had started once in another reunion that was too short. 

_‘I know.’_ Back then, it had been some year and counting. Their solitude and intimacy is somewhat familiar, but only printed in words alone. Still, Siegfried had answered back then with only a page taken from nothing else except Percival’s expression. _‘I’ll come back.’_

_‘That’s not what I was going to say.’_ Annoyed, Percival was still trying to work through his feelings, because somehow, Siegfried always seemed to know for the both of them. 

_‘No? Sorry.’_ It’s said so casually, but he can’t be annoyed when it’s another goodbye. 

_‘It was close though.’_ And there’s a laughing smile before it’s lost under the helmet that Percival quickly catches. 

They are distant not for the sake of themselves. For duty, for their hearts, for their separations and longings together. At least, for Percival. He is never sure with Siegfried, even if he would like to be. It is easier, when seasons uncurl and even he can be sure what comes after winter. 

He is no longer sure where their promise had started. In bed, during their farewells, quiet evenings aside, in their _‘stay alive to meet me again.’_ In the end, it is Siegfried who had taught him so many things even if Percival would never admit a single one. For their darkness in each other’s past, it would still be hidden if it were not for them. It is never entirely gone, they bore another weight on top of it all, but still, it is better that Percival would have gladly endured knowing it all. A bitterness that it is truly overwhelming to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all, but one he will accept. 

If Siegfried should never show up again one day, Percival will accept that too. They are prepared, and they both trusted and believed in their decisions. 

***

He’s gone now. Siegfried never stayed in one place anymore. 

And Percival can only wonder. 

There is light, and then there is love. Nothing holds or compares to either, and Percival watches both disappear on the small of a back, his tattered cloak the only remaining thing to meet his farewell. 

There is no teary goodbye or even anything remotely close. Only a simple and small, “Take care then, Siegfried.” 

Even if it can no longer be heard on that rising hill, still, Siegfried raises his hand in his own goodbye.

**Author's Note:**

> had this in the backlog for months, but never finished any of it except for the ending until now.


End file.
